The Eightfold Path: Right View

“Seeing a thing in its true nature, without name and label”

The Eightfold Path is less like a series of steps, and more like a wheel with spokes. Each part is supported by but also supports the other spokes of the wheel.

So Right View is not necessarily the first step, but it’s the step I will explain first. On the other hand:

“Right View cannot be described. We can only point in the correct direction. Right View cannot even be transmitted by a teacher. A teacher can help us identify the seed of Right View that is already in our garden, and help us have the confidence to practice, to entrust that seed to the soil of our daily life.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh

Everything Is An Illusion

At least, that’s how I’d summarize the foundation of Buddhism — The Four Noble Truths. If you haven’t read about those yet or if it’s been a while, here’s a condensed refresher:

1. Suffering exists
2. Suffering arises from our attachment to things (including our beliefs)
3. There is a way to reduce, escape, or transcend suffering
4. That way is the Eightfold Path

Right View in its simplest form could be considered a thorough understanding of the Noble Truths, which point to “impermanence.”

Everything in this world shifts and changes, like sand dunes in the wind. We may come up with observations about how the world works (and we should) but to assert that our knowledge is final and complete is to set ourselves up for disappointment when something shifts.

Even the Earth is going to be swallowed up by the Sun, and then the Sun is going to explode, and so on.

To have this view is not to succumb to nihilism — that would still be an expression of your attachment to your old way of thinking.

To have this view is to realize that you and everything about you is also impermanent.

And to have that view is to realize you are free to change.